Winning is contagious

Is a .500 record where we expected to be after the first 62 games of the season? Of course not.

But a rash of injuries to our starting pitching and an incredible team slump offensively put us big-time behind the eight-ball just 12 games ago.

But we didn't throw in the towel, as many, many predicted (you know who you are. By the way, I haven't heard from the likes of jrhcpa and wrightstuff1 lately. Anyway know why? lol).

A couple of positives tonight: First and foremost, how about Bobby Abreu, you know, the guy that Brian Cashman made a huge mistake in picking up at the trade deadline last year. Tonight, he provided all the offense we needed when he connected for a three-run blast off reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb in the first inning.

For those of you scoring at home:
1. Abreu was able to go deep despite going only 4 for 18 (.222) in his previous at-bats against Webb.
2. The soft-spoken right-fielder reached base safely in nine straight plate appearances before lining out in the third inning.
3. His is batting .488 (20 for 41) in 11 June games with 12 RBI and 11 walks.

Wow, thank God we didn't do anything stupid before he broke out of his May-long slump.

In addition to Abreu, you've got to like what you're seeing out of Chien-Ming Wang these days. I still don't believe he's completely 100 percent, but he's a far cry of what he was when he came off the disabled list and started his own version of spring training. The hard sinker sometimes goes 94, 95 miles and hour, which is incredible. He's currently 6-4 overall. That win total should rise.

Well, we got Muss going today and Andy going tomorrow. If we continue to get quality pitching, as we have in our current seven-game skein, we're going to be OK, maybe even make a run for the division title.

But right now, I hope we just keep winning games.

EXTRA INNINGS: I'm sorry, I can't let this go. It was brought to my attention over the weekend that Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca did some styling when he hit the third of back-to-back-to-back homers in a game against Philadelphia last week. Seems that Little Paulie stared down the flight of the ball and even flipped his bat. I said 'what? How can it be?' Wasn't this the same clown who confronted A-Rod last season after the latter hit a grand slam against the Mets on Sunday Night baseball? Even though it didn't appear A-Rod did much, or anything at all for that matter. Little Paulie's response was something to the tune of: "Everybody else has done it against us.'' What a big, fat hypocrite. You know what Little Paulie? Just keep your mouth shut. You just made a fool of yourself.
I certainly hope Roger Clemens doesn't throw at Little Paulie this weekend. Beside not wanting to hear Met fans cry like babies ("he did it on purpose. Wahhhhhh"), I don't know if the 6-foot-5 Clemens would be able to take the 5-foot-nothing Lo Duca in a fight.